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Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

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Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#521

Post by javajosh »

PaulHoule wrote: post #493
javajosh wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good compromise is to educate users on how to add a shortcut to their homescreen. I don't think people (including product people) know about this feature, and mobile browsers bury it. The pareto principle applies: 80% of stickiness is that icon, which you can get for 20% of the effort of an app.

It doesn't work for me. All icons on mobile look the same to me: I mean, Android's Material Design icons really look the same to me and even the icons from iOS never really stick in my head. That "settings" icon for instance with all the gears looks like a movie poster for The Golden Compass and not a settings dialog. The App store and Adobe Acrobat and many applications have meaningless logos based around a generic…

On Android the shortcut icon is derived from the favicon, so material design doesn't apply. (There is also a "badge" for the browser app itself).

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#522

Post by parpfish »

nbar1 wrote: post #463
baq wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, this and exactly this. Their finance team probably made a projection that if they can get X% of current mobile web users onto the app, they’ll be able to extract Y% more total revenue. They have no idea that they should split users into contributors and lurkers and even if they had, they have absolutely no idea how to model their value, so they don’t, the board sees the numbers and tells them ‘ASAP’ and that’s…

> They have no idea that they should split users into contributors and lurkers Comments like this amaze me. People really think these giant corps are out here not doing things like this.

I think the problem is that people read the analyses that companies share publicly (e.g., in a press release or earnings call), and they assume that that's all they did.

You should assume that any numbers shared publicly are just the tip of a giant-ass iceberg and that there were probably 10x more analyses going on internally that weren't shared.

The thing that ultimately gets shared publicly is whatever avoids using advanced stats or internal jargon; They want a single soundbite, not a scientific paper with a full methods section.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#524

Post by Aulig »

danaris wrote: post #502
kitsunesoba wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth pointing out that not all in-app browsers are created equal, however. A huge number of apps, probably the majority, on iOS use SFSafariViewController for theirs, which is basically an isolated Safari tab that runs out of process and app developers have no access to. Furthermore, SFSafariViewController instances are unique per-app, each with their own separate set of cookies so apps can’t trick you into visiting…

The question is, is there any way for the user to tell the difference just by looking? Or is that something you have to be able to examine the binary to be able to determine?

They look significantly different on both platforms, so it's easy to notice if you know how ewch one looks

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#525

Post by Maxburn »

_zzaw wrote: post #3

There is only one appropriate, effective response to disrespect, and that is to not reward the offending party. I made it a matter of principle to not use the Reddit app. Even if they removed all ads and made it an acceptable user experience, I'll never use the app as long as they are harassing me about it. It's simple. Don't reward bad behavior. Sometimes, denying obnoxious people something they want means denying y…

I can't believe they would do this AND kill off third party apps. I'm with you on not rewarding reddit, they have become very user hostile all the sudden.

I was going to ban personal reddit use this week but I already broke that to read this topic and respond to the one dev that replied to it.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#526

Post by [deleted] »

c7b wrote: post #357

There's something that I don't get about forcing mobile browser users into mobile apps - how does it make sense for the company? They're forcing themselves into a walled garden, where the gardener takes a hefty "app store tax" on your revenues and has countless levers to force you to style the app how it suits their interests, not yours. For some apps, this might still be the best way to gain traction. But if have al…

[deleted]

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#528

Post by enragedcacti »

grepfru_it wrote: post #445
eek2121 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the person that threatened a mass shooting, the correct move would be to contact the FBI.The FBI would have then reached out to Reddit. I use third party apps exclusively, and will not be participating in Reddit after Apollo shuts down.

Why couldn’t the third party apps just ask the user to provide their own api key? It’s how chatgpt works, what is the pushback with this? I heard Apollo requires the app to communicate with an Apollo server. So are the Apollo devs mad they are now being charged for their data stream?

That is how it worked already, apps made requests through the users OAuth creds and rate limits were specified by unique OAuth cred and App combo. The new system is just each app having global rate limits, after which they have to pay. Getting an API key requires submitting a written application to reddit and seemingly precludes "I want to use a third party app".

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#529

Post by ok123456 »

veidr wrote: post #399
c7b wrote: post #357

There's something that I don't get about forcing mobile browser users into mobile apps - how does it make sense for the company? They're forcing themselves into a walled garden, where the gardener takes a hefty "app store tax" on your revenues and has countless levers to force you to style the app how it suits their interests, not yours. For some apps, this might still be the best way to gain traction. But if have al…

The web puts the user in control; apps (on all significant platforms currently existing) put the company in control. Yes, Google and (especially) Apple may force Reddit to comply with this or that, but Google and (especially) Apple also prevent the user from doing all sorts of things they can do with an open platform like the web. Users can't block ads in an app. Users can't block telemetry. Users can't prevent track…

You can block ads in apps. In android 11, you can have it use OpenDNS's adblocking server.

Re: Did Reddit just destroy mobile browser access?

#530

Post by bcherny »

c7b wrote: post #357

There's something that I don't get about forcing mobile browser users into mobile apps - how does it make sense for the company? They're forcing themselves into a walled garden, where the gardener takes a hefty "app store tax" on your revenues and has countless levers to force you to style the app how it suits their interests, not yours. For some apps, this might still be the best way to gain traction. But if have al…

99% sure the reason is push notifications.

Putting on my PM hat, I bet:

- On web, the biggest top of funnel entrypoint for Reddit is Google search

- On mobile, it’s push notifications

The latter is probably the single biggest retention lever Reddit has. The former is an acquisition lever, but probably doesn’t do much for retention.

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